“Well written and an interesting perspective.” Clan Rossi --- “Your article is too good about Japanese business pushing nuclear power.” Consulting Group --- “Thank you for the article. It was quite useful for me to wrap up things quickly and effectively.” Taylor Johnson, Credit Union Lobby Management --- “Great information! I love your blog! You always post interesting things!” Jonathan N.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

How to do bad PR: Announce plans to raise fees effecting
low-income customers, then pull back, wait a year, then announce such plans
again, then pull back yet again. This sort of PR strategy gives rise to
headlines such as, “Bank of America Backs Down on New Fees.” The Wall Street
Journal could have added, “yet again.” Besides the obvious PR downside to
announcing unpopular fees—and on one’s least well-off customers—is the
implication of weakness or vulnerability in repeatedly backing down. In the
animal kingdom, Bank of America would not exactly be the alpha male lion.
Rather, the bank would be one of the other males, which may or may not get to
reproduce.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Before 1917, senators could filibuster only by talking
continuously on the U.S. Senate floor. There was no mechanism to stop them.
Such filibusters were rare until entering World War I was debated. In 1917, the
Senate passed its first “cloture” rule, whereby two-thirds of the Senate could
cut off debate and force a final vote. Between that year and 1971, no two-year
session of Congress had more than 10 such votes. Even so, in 1971 the rules
were changed to allow other legislation to be taken up during a filibuster—relieving
a senator of having to continuously talk to maintain one. Making it easier to
filibuster quickly led to the predictable result of more filibusters. In the 93rd
Congress (1973-74), the number of cloture motions jumped to 31, from an average
in the 1917-1971 period of two per Congressional session. In 1975, the number
of votes needed to stop a filibuster was lowered from 67 to 60. However, this
change did not curtail the use of the device, as it is rare for a party to
control 60 votes out of 100 in the U.S. Senate. By 2010, the average number of
cloture motions per two-year session had risen to 129, which suggests that the
filibuster had become more typical in how senate business was to be conducted. In
effect, legislation and even executive business, such as confirming
presidential nominations, needed a supermajority (60 out of 100) in the upper
chamber of Congress.The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.

Karel De Gucht, the E.U. trade commissioner, said in late
November 2012, “There is now, for the first time in years, a serious drive
towards an E.U.-U.S. free-trade agreement.” The office of his counterpart, Ron Kirk,
the U.S. trade representative, indicated that a high-level working-group
consisting of Europeans and Americans was working on “how best to increase
U.S.-E.U. trade and investment.” The sticking point concerned non-tariff
barriers, such as different regulatory standards.The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.

Karel De Gucht, the E.U. Trade Commissioner, advocating a free-trade pact with the U.S. (Reuters).

Sunday, November 25, 2012

According to Joe Nocera, Steve Jobs was not a
consensus-builder but a dictator. Lest it be objected that this disqualifies
him from being admitted to the “true leader” hall of fame, Nocera hints at an
explanation for why visionary leaders may not be all that touchy-feely after
all. Nocera suggests that Jobs was a dictator because he “listened mainly to
his own intuition.” He “never stopped relying on his singular instincts in
making decisions” on Apple products. This makes complete sense, as his sense
was singular.

Steve Jobs at Apple. Is it the vision or charisma that accounts for the focus on such pictures? Getty